I need help trying to create piping that goes along a curved surface for half of it, then curves out away from the surface
Perhaps an alternative approach to shrinkwrapping is as follows: (It's not easy to make illustrations for this one, so I'll just try to decscribe it)


Duplicate your smokestack and tanks
Enlarge the duplicate appropriately, scaling (S) or fattening (AltS). This object is going to be the 'Form' for your pipes (they lie slightly outside the objects they are aligned to.)
Simply select edges from the 'Form', where you want the pipes on the cylinder. Don't worry about the right-angle corners, we'll get to that. If the edges don't exist, subdivide, or cut using the Knife (K) tool.
Duplicate (ShiftD) those edges, and extrude the end vertices of the duplicate sections to create the splaying straight pipes. If your model is up in Z, that will be - Select vertex, EShiftZ for the horizontal sections, and EZ for the plunge into the tank.
Separate the selection of edges (P) into a new 'Pipes' object - and bevel (CtrlShiftB) its right-angle corner vertices to give them the curve you're looking for.
Convert the 'Pipes' mesh into a Curve, and in its'Shape' and 'Geometry' panels give it a Full Bevel profile with enough resolution to make the pipes round.
If you've kept the resolutions reasonable , and dissolved out vertices in straight sections which are not contributing to the shape, you might want convert back to mesh, and put a subdivision surface modifier on the result.




I short, the method takes the vertices from existing geometry, rather than creating shapes from scratch.